Gabor Maté: The Psychology Behind Power, Narcissism & Donald Trump

Align Podcast

Aaron Alexander

Society & Culture, Philosophy

4.8 • 923 Ratings

🗓️ 20 March 2026

⏱️ 71 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Narcissism is everywhere in today’s conversation. Labeled, analyzed, and often condemned. But what if it isn’t simply dysfunction… what if it’s protection? What if the traits we judge most harshly were once necessary for survival? And when we look at powerful figures like Donald Trump, are we seeing pathology... or the long shadow of early adaptation? In this episode of the Align Podcast, Dr. Gabor Maté unpacks how childhood experiences shape identity, behavior, and health, revealing how trauma lives in the body and drives much of what we call personality. This conversation opens a deeper lens on healing, connection, and what it really means to come back to yourself. EPISODE #586 IS SPONSORED BY: 🎟️ Get 15% off at Kaizen (clean electrolytes): https://LiveKaizen.com/align 🎟️ Go to Timeline.com/ALIGN and get up to 39% off your order of Mitopure Gummies ========== OUR GUEST ========== A renowned speaker and bestselling author, Dr. Gabor Maté is highly sought after for his expertise on a range of topics including addiction, stress, and childhood development. Dr. Maté has written several bestselling books, including the award-winning In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction, When the Body Says No: Exploring the Stress-Disease Connection, and Scattered: How Attention Deficit Disorder Originates and What You Can Do About It, and has coauthored Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers. His works have been published internationally in nearly thirty languages. ============ GABOR MATÉ ============ 📸 IG ▶ https://www.instagram.com/gabormatemd/ 📘 FB ▶ https://www.facebook.com/drgabormate ▶ YT ▶ https://www.youtube.com/@drgabormate9132 🌐 WEB ▶ https://drgabormate.com/ ================= AARON ALEXANDER ================= 📸 IG ▶ https://www.instagram.com/aaronalexander/ 🤳 TIKTOK ▶ https://www.tiktok.com/@alignmethod 👉 SUBSCRIBE ▶ https://www.youtube.com/@AlignPodcast?sub_confirmation=1 🌐 WEBSITE ▶ https://www.alignpodcast.com =========== TIMESTAMPS =========== 00:00 Intro 00:50 Origins of the Belief “Something Is Wrong With Me” 04:30 How Early Trauma Shapes the Brain 09:40 Top Regrets of the Dying 12:20 Is Trauma Just Adaptation? 18:50 How We Store Trauma in the Body 25:10 Can Trauma Ever Fully Go Away? 32:20 How Trauma Shows Up in the Body & Disease 38:25 Narcissism as a Survival Mechanism 42:10 Dr Gabor Psychoanalyzes Donald Trump 48:30 The Most Harmful Belief 54:10 What Unconditional Love Really Means 56:00 Is Anxiety & Depression Rooted in Trauma? 01:02:15 The Core of Being Human 01:07:00 Closing Reflections & Final Thoughts ====== ABOUT ====== Aaron Alexander is the best-selling author of The Align Method and host of The Align Podcast — a Top 10 Philosophy show with over one million monthly views. For two decades, he has helped the world’s greatest performers, athletes, and CEO’s improve the way they move, breathe, and regulate their nervous systems — simply put, he helps the best in the world feel and function even better. Aaron’s mission is simple: to inspire and educate people to live in alignment — body, mind, and beyond. Through the podcast and Align Breathing certification program, he teaches the principles of posture, breath, and movement that reconnect us to our natural state of strength and ease. ====== TOPICS ====== 1. Trauma healing 2. Early childhood development 3. Mind-body connection 4. Anxiety and depression causes 5. Narcissism 6. Donald Trump's Psychological Profile Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Not all psychopaths are in prison, many of them are in CEOs and boardrooms.
0:05.0	This society rewards people that behave that way.
0:09.0	How does narcissism manifest as a protective mechanism for a person?
0:14.0	In other words, you have to be prison in the United States.
0:17.0	And he wasn't born like that. He was born a tender infant, like we all were. But then he had a certain childhood in a home that his niece,
0:24.6	was a psychologist, married Trump, and she says that the grandfather, Fred Sr.
0:28.6	was a sociopath.
0:30.6	If you had 10 days with Donald Trump to resolve any past traumas,
0:35.6	what would you prescribe to Donald Trump?
0:37.8	What's really interesting is that...
0:39.3	Dr. Gabor Mate, thank you so much for being here again.
0:53.3	Pleasure.
0:54.0	Where is that the initial inherent belief that there's something wrong with me, arise, or come from?
1:00.0	So nobody's born with it.
1:02.0	You know, no cat and no human being is born with any sense that there's something wrong with me.
1:09.0	So it's an acquired perspective.
1:15.0	And how human beings develop is
1:20.4	children see themselves in the mirror of their parents
1:24.4	and of the adult world.
1:26.5	So whatever the adult world reflects back to them,
1:29.2	that's how the child will see themselves.
1:32.5	Now, if you imagine yourself looking into a mirror
	...

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